My falling out with the Cartographer was not absolute.
Though it's easy to notice when the deep gravity of the Universe,
has been reduced to the mundane whispers of the ordinary.

The strength of loyalty is tested in these blind walks of faith.
As the world unfolds beneath my feet, the mind too does wander.
Hidden worlds vibrate between reality and fiction.
I map this microcosm of the known, to reach the ever after.

And so it goes that in my purposeful aimlessness, I'll find the road back.
Every excuse will always be, but letting go will set me free.
Free to once again entangle creation's creativity.

Just Words....
Just Words... They Say
They say... Just Words

These Jackals and their cackles
These Hyenas and their chortles

These words which slay with every key stroke
These words which vilify, contorting all perception
These words which stalk with dangerous fear

These words which give voice to genocide
These words which command believers
These words which personify society

These words never have been just words
Just excuses
Just reasons
Just barriers

Justifying falsehoods that words are just words, with no consequences.

Just words which are just words to you,
Just words which are a death sentence for me.

The winter blues are rich with gloom,
twisting my heart with apathy.

And perhaps shame too, let it not hide behind the weather.

Is it this dark obsession or some hidden transgression?

All the lessons learned, but failure is all that remains.

What road is left, I cannot see between the flickers of my dwindling flame.

Staring into the unwavering flame on the wick
Of a freshly lit candle, I nearly had a heart attack

Time too, decided to pause, the world grew quiet
And I grew sick in this endless moment.

Why was I so afraid to be stuck in one place,
All because of an unhealthy love for that glow

At the break, she danced across my eyes like
Orange brushtrokes on the setting sun of a canvas.

My heartbeat returns to normal, I breathe in
Letting all my fears burn away into ash.

I understand that hatred of my enemies
I have felt the creeping parasite in my veins
The boiling blood which erupts in chest
Due to the ill of men, and their ignorance

I know why they hate me so, evil as they are
Poisoned words overflowing into my tranquility
Heartbeats choking agianst the toxic aroma
Conflicted struggle between vengence and justice

I hold fast vindictive appetites, for patient truths
An enemy with many faces, carved from lies
Can only be slayed with a revolution of knowledge
This wealth of mind, is the preservation of peace

The world falls apart at the fringes.
Reset. Bright light. Mind wipe.
Later, some time much later.
I have forgotten it all.
Only to remember.
A cycle of breaking amd mending.
A cycle of failing and reseting.
The rumble of worlds turn over,
More times than I'd know.
I feel the tremors, delusions or not.
But the heart of this problem.
The meat of it all.
Is this ****** door.
It's weathered, worn,
But resistant to time and change.
Beneath the creases of its ironwood,
Darkness screams forward.
Calling, crawling closer to me.
Later, some time later.
I remember, I open the door.
The Pandora's Box of mind.
My world crumbles, white blind,
Reset.

I'm falling apart,
I'm living a lie
I'm dancing with a crooked smile
Feel the beat, taste the high
Drink your poison, embrace the night

Soft are your lips, buried in my chest
Fingers in your hair, tears break silence

We laugh, we cry, I tell you I'm dying
To confess my madness, or was it sadness

A typhoon, a thunderstorm, all hell breaks loose
I let go, I fall into a rude little slumber

Tired eyes flutter, night creeps into day
Ready to serve my desires once more

I travel from room to room
Searching through the Saturday rush,
the Downtown Bars.

A beautiful brunette, with a twinkle
In her eyes, held me, just a gaze,
Gentle, understanding, knowing.

It was all swell, we rejoiced,
In sugar words, with silver tongues
Though, now she's lost in the crowd.

My journey through sweat, lust and *****,
Takes me here and there
Places of eerie recollections, an ominous familiarity.

Some far different from the rest,
All the while feeling like home, but rotten
This is a dream, or a nightmare.

These are not doors, I walk within the past.
Searching for a girl, not wanting to be found.
So I lay her to rest, closing the door behind me.

I wish to write of softer things
Hands shake, hate in my veins.
Pen pressed to paper,
Red ink, scribbling empty words

Repeating, repeating, repeating
Hate, hate, hate

Heart weighed by tons
Baggage, carried, gathered, found
Books scattered across the floor
Unfinished, left open.

Struggling, I cannot
Bring myself to... move on
Close them, my library
Clean house, write a new story.

One day, these words,
Will find meaning, create hope.
Cleanse the monster, the one
Torturing  my restless soul.

I couldn't count the times
"I love you" rolled off my tongue
In a bold and wicked lie

The mountains of regret
Are forged with the same deciet
Because in Truth I hate you.

I could tell you a thousand times
But you are so **** foolish
You fail to see the only truth.

I'll play ball, this tired game
With showered materials gifts
In return for a failed fable

I reach out and pound on the glass.
I scream to the world, fist bleeding,
Voice scratching into hoarse whispers.

Everyone. They all move...on.

The roads diverged. And I’m on every path.
But more importantly I’m on none.

Little Fire Dancer,
twirling about the night
These eyes mesmerized,
by the fiery performance

Exotic acrobatics
And a luminous soul
The danger in the motiob
Is transparent

Illusory beauty fades
Into flames of destruction
Footprints singe the ground
With elegant and tainted grace

This tango is a one way ride
Immersed in the fever
Step by step we burn
So brightly

Until this malevolent enchantress
Becomes one with a whisper
And I am left the only casualty,
Burned.

Each verse is loaded ammunition
An arsenal of words preparing for war

Locked and loaded, these stanzas are ready
To fight the ****** battle, in a War of Words

Each spoken lyric, is a shot to the temple of Ignorance
Muses and medics line up to infuse their knowledge

Reload and repeat, the bards sing of Revolution
A Libretto for freedom, in unison from the Voiceless Nation

Oh my, am I humbled
Loving v. Virginia
History that is blood

Do you hear the pumping
Oh man, I feel it now
Riding on the winds of change

She's inbetween the tattered cloak of clouds
On her pedastool, breaking necks on high
Full, with piercing white gaze she calls to me
The night sky bends, her light is will
As the smokey valleys of obscurities
Evaporate into thin memories of yesterday
Silent now, penciling away her secrets.

Hatred replaced the beating
The violent vibrations hollowed
Once lush and lively places
Carved in feelings I cannot understand

Conflicting with virtues
Asking what is the right thing
Introspection reveals the fear
Of the shameful devil in the mirror

Transformed from the wickedness
Which has grown wild and cruel
Bloom these demon eyes
Luminating into the might with pride.

Beckon down deep, the cold echoes
An evil mind holds the truth
Toxic lifeblood eroded away
The former, the King of Beast in my stay

She says, "Go on, tell me."

So I do, I talk about these devils.
That sudden swarm inside,
I speak of the paralyzing misbeat
Of a stressed out chest.

"That's your anxiety?"

It takes me over, controls me,
Helpless behind a steering wheel
Of a maniac's mania driven horror
But I'm stuck for the ride.

"And who is this other?"

Nameless. Just a foul thing.
There were others, masks
A sea of voices, drowning me out
High tide and its sink or swim

"Go on."

When I'm calm, its quiet.
But I know they slither on,
The engrainimg entrenching thoughts
Of cruelty thats not my own.

"You're afraid?"

I'm wandering about the darkness
With fiendish things in mind
A pitiful puppet of anxiety
Waiting for the end of times

Ay ma
I just don't get it
Always about them ma
They ain't never asked you huh,
Never asked you ma,
Never cared to see
What you had to tell us
About this white mans world
How we are afraid
They **** us ma,
They don't believe us,
Or they probably don't care
I saw my man get beat ma,
Right down the street
By the corner store
Had his hands up ma,
He was crying, afraid of dying
Ma, he was so scared
And if they don't **** us
Then they lock us ma,
For nothing, just like dad.
But they don't care ma,
Same old story.
They ain't never asked
They ain't never cared to see
Whats its been like for you and me.

Words evolve
Stanzas create concepts
Compouding into ideas

Fiendish

Extremely cruel
Unpleasant, devilish

Spreading like wildfire
Abyssian flames consume
The mind now enveloped

Two syllables
Imbued with power
To control, to identify
Through willing submission

The pen lashes out
Lacerating wounds
Bleed the word
The obsession of madness

The Clock strikes three days until Madness.
An itch of a Tick and every Toc.

The Question of old simmers in the Mind.
A Deviant is only half the Answer.

The Cursed Weapon is drawn at the Ready.
Words offer no Reason or Resolve.

The Golden Feather succumbs to the Crimson.
Yielding all Truth to die as Fiction.

I was to supposed to write of the Thunderstorm.
High winds. Pouring rain.
Uprooted trees. Burning wood.
A terribly terrific piece.
But, I let the words float on.
Drowning in a sea of unwritten dreams.

I was supposed to write of the Dancing Flame.
Rocking embers. Glowing rhythm.
Sweet cinder. Smoking desires.
A horrifyingly honest part.
But, I let the words smolder into ash.
Going down in an arsonist's dream.

But mania, oh mania.
Writing everything about nothing.
But me, oh me.
Writing nothing about anything.

I was supposed to write,
But didn't.

Cold, muffled sounds,
Existing formlessly confused.
Heaved from the bedrock.
Awaiting freedom from
My primal stone prison.

Each strike cracks away
Imperfections piling up in
A haze of rubble and lies.
Slowly clinging to a feeling
Bound to the earth.

I feel the touch of soft
Loving hands through
the rough shell incasing.
Searching for the fine details
Which parts will bend or break.
A work of art only seen through
Careful gaze.

Working away at rugged body
Ill dreams, poisoned thoughts
Fade into the dust at my feet.
Finally feeling the smoothness
Of my skin, almost ready.
Complete your masterpiece.
Finish me. Your relic to stand against
Time. Eroding, breaking losing
Profound definition as years pass.
But the meaning and the love
Stand against loss of mortality.

The naysayers will tell you to quit

The people who don't want change will tell you it is pointless

The opposition will ridicule you and dehumanize you

But remember this,
The fallen commend you
The disenfranchised
The ones who fought for rights they'd never have
The people who live in fear require you
The powers that be fear you
The leaders who cannot lead the unruly fear you
The poison of doubt is relinquished as you march

No change is easy, so keep marching, keep screaming, flood the streets with the voices of truth.

The land of the free can only be, when that slogan is for all people.

So let them mock you, but do not let them defeat you
So let them curse you, but do not give them your hatred
So let them doubt, but in return give us hope

The world is watching and we need you.

I always loved my grandmother
As most young boys do
She held me tight
Singing in her terrible voice
Sharing her world with me
I still recall peeling fresh apples
As we mixed and mashed for pie

When age overcame her,
When her body betrayed her,
When I was not there
When wounds are eternally fresh

Age came for me too,
With it, a swell of dark secrets
Ones of devils, so close to home
I wondered, what person could dwell
With family, in a home, here in hell
A grandafather I never knew, forked tongue
And perversions in the brain
His grave forgotten, while his scars remained

Perhaps she did the best she could
Turning a blind eye against a fiend
But as closed doors reveal themselves
A twisting vine of hate creeps and crawls
Sinking its roots in memories skewed
In rose colored glasses, as I unshaken gaze
Into the endless ripples of repercussions

Mass hysteria meets mass mortality.
They are dead.
They are dead.
They are dead.
Unreality sets in like a fog.
Like a cog in a great winding machine.
A divine thing, but a cruel and unkind thing.

I tried crawling out mind
Eyes following the morning wrens
But that ****** screaming
They are so cheerful, hopping along the fence
Why are thoughts so loud today?
Run to the shade little birds, today's a scorcher

Heat stroke, but its only May!
Scatter now, fly away with any tune.
A cool glass of water, I do feel better.
Sing away, 10 wings flutter, the harmony
Something still doesn't seem quite right.
Shadows in the wind, feathered friends.

I walk alleys and avenues of broken roads.
Black tops eroded from years of punishing
Rainfall, passerbys and time.

After a hard rain, shallow mirrors open up,
Revealing an unyielding world on its head.

It seems, as I walk amidst the distinguished,
Cracks, chips and pebbles that this moment,
Both real and a memory is everlasting.

Overcast, both dismal and hopeful, I read
Between the skylines of the upsidedown.

I breath in this parallel, I write it all down,
A collection of neverhaves.

A creation that is mine for the making, or
For the taking, should I wish.

I decided to make council,
With the restless thoughts
Who so loudly impose their
Selfish will, stealing all sanity.

Mind goes dark, rekindled.
A chorus of ill, surrounds the hold.
Farther, at the castles court,
The loudest voices quarrel

Those of past, present, and future.
Essence of good, bad and indifferent.
Hands drawn with wild cards.
But no full house or flush to play.

They've taken notice, grins gone wide.
For the anarchist win, this game of pride.
An outcast falls, over and out the wall.
To scream the song of wanting.

Eyes open, light returns, palavar done.
None the wiser, but the time has come.
It works slowly, in effort's guise.
Rework the master, or meet demise.

Midas was my enemy,
A violent grip, on an old pen
Tossed it over for me to bend
Words for his twisted golden mind

The cursed King with all his riches
Wanted the prose for cure
A rhythmic rhyme  to rid his shine
To end his touch of alchemy

I pitied the old man, his metallic
Skin, did send shivers down my spine
I offered a verse, reading and lips pursed
As 24 karats fell from his eyes

I'm glad you decided to stay
Full beamed and smiling
Its morning now, the night has gone away
Yet here in this purple sky is the Moon
So happy and gay

Oh golly, its noon and here you are
Are you afraid I might miss you
When you returns to the stars
I'll be okay, believe me dear Luna
I trust when you're gone, you'll never be far

Dusk approaches, and you aren't in sight
Did you heed my words
I've not seen you since lunch, I hope you're alright
But of course you are, and I mustn't worry
In the darkest days, you are my brightest night

The right side of my face is charred
Black scars replaced the vision I once obtained
Following down the burned flesh
Reveals the remains of what was once my arm
The mutilation leaving me half of what I was
Phantom limbs shatter reflections in my wake
As a rejection and refusal to see what I've become
This dark necropolis having taken me hostage
Peeling away my madness, years at a time
I've forgotten, why this Nightmare fights to be real
While this sickness walks with me, whispering.

Tone radiating hate,
Heed the words against
Humanity.

I am a misanthrope.
Not the fools with empty
Hearts masking open wounds.
Nor the psychotic mind
Seeking pleasure in misery.

Observing, in such a way.
To see the humans scurry like ants.
Stepping on eachother to succeed
In pointless attempt at hollow lives.
Bloodshed, tears and bad jokes.
Do not tell me love is the cure
For it is the cause.

My fondest desire, a world
Without humanity. Purging
Our evil from the sweet earth.
We do not belong here.

At sunrise
I awake from
A violent comatose

I welcome the fiery rain
Soak my flesh from the faucet
Taking deep breathes in stride

With an arsonist anthem playing
Eyes closed and heart racing
The immolation takes flight

Bones made ash become warpaint
A far cry from help as I burn
An unstable dynamo ready to blow

The morning fog rolls in
A new day cascades into dew drops
The mountains reminder of
An unwavering ability to impose its will
On those dwelling in the comfort below

This is a break from the cloudless
Skies which have plagued the Earth
With fiery days relentlessly.
Taking a break to enjoy the change
Misty eyes and solemn smiles
Disguise themselves in limited
Visibility

Dear night mother,
The youngling flew the coop.
Off for wild adventures, he cannot be tamed.
His elder kin spoke of magic,
The intellectual splendor of spells
Gifted yes, but not quite so as her
The painted daughter of darkness,
She colours the world in twilight.
This brings us to dusk, mantle I wear proud.
Eldest of eld, nutured by you mother,
To grow strong, wicked and well.

Those glowing eyes,
The prestege of feathers
Mother owl, bless our endeavours.
Grow old, grow wise

Bless you, oh mother,
And the nocturne skies.

My heart is black
it has no reflection
but reveals my thoughts,
my pain and rejections.

My heart is black
and my blood runs cold.
I remember the past
back when I wasn't as bold.

My heart is black
my patience is thin.
Where are you God?
Why can't I win?

My heart is black
yet your light shines.
The cure for my darkness
sent from the heavens divine.

My heart is black
but our friendship grows.
I see the light
come on lets go.

The biggest fear that I have as a writer,
Is that I will inevitable recycle old ideas.
Whether this is done consciously or not,
I fear of the complications it may bring.

Does it represent an evolution of past thoughts,
Or is it a compromise and the death of innovation.

Inspiration strikes invariably, but there is novelty.
Yet, this feeling looms, that I'm near the end.

I'd like to believe that I will forever spark creativity.
That as I have always done, new flames will blaze.

But there is too much doubt that a good thing,
Won't keep going for long, and its been long.

Admitting that feels good, and until that time comes,
If it comes at all, I'll have to trust the words in me.

I once crafted a mask full of
my fiendish desires.
Black soul stained in clay
taking on my rage and wrath.

Placed upon my brow, I ignite
Hardened heart, thick darkness
consuming me, I embrace
Abandoning the light once again.

I press this pen to paper
synchronizing evil intentions
with the thoughts of my former
self no longer, I accept.

Blood rushing, chest bursting
Pride and power taint
the flesh upon which they lie
Slipping slowly into the Abyss.

Oh star child, oracle divine
Help me decipher these visions of mine

So vibrant and vivid
It seems I'm committed
To madness

Work your magic
Read the heavens
Or the skies
Do you see truth
Or is it demise.

I beg you dreamwalker,
Seer of wonder and youth.
Bend my lost and fevered mind.

My life changed on a whim.
For no particular reason I watched a squirrel scurry up a tree.
He, or she (but not an it), stared at me.
They went branch to branch, stopping here and there to observe their new observer.

And how many times has this moment passed by, going unnoticed.
How many times had this animal instinct been drowned out by the clutter of daily life.

It wasn’t as though I had disregarded life before, but this was a fundamental awakening.
Before I could wrap my head around the simplicity of this divine happenstance,
I saw a cardinal swoop down on a fence-post a few feet away.
Again, I was enveloped in the novelty of this life.
I was in a state of dull wonder, looking at the vibrant red, the low swoop of the crown, the small of the body.

The trance broke, another squirrel scurried past me and up a tree.

I noticed this one bore a scar.
The hind leg was stripped of fur.
The skin wore the discoloration of freshly healed flesh.
They too, stared at me, perhaps perplexed that it was being watched.

I walked on.
Then finishing my morning walk, I noticed many things.
It was not just life that was intriguing me, it was the way the mundane began to scream at me.
I walked through abandoned lots, noting the way their roads would crack and crumble.
I noticed broken security cameras from long departed offices and buildings.
I noticed the broken marlin in the trash heap behind some house, no longer sporting its beak.
I noticed an old ford with a rubber rifle shell for an antenna and a load of wood planks in its bed.
I noticed a graffiti stick figure on the short bridge, some dystopian cave painting.

All of that to say, a hidden world became revealed.
A world that existed underneath my own, blurred by its previously perceived unimportance.
So now, I wonder what to do with this knowledge.
I think I’ll borrow its magic.
I think I’ll write down the bizarre normalcy that I see.
A running list of averages.
It is the beginning of something.

A door has opened.

Let's talk time.
My time, it cannot be bought.
My time cannot be leveraged.
You cannot assert yourself,
Imposing your time, money or effort,
With the expectation I owe you a thing.

I'll respect your time,
But you best respect mine.

Though that's never been the case,
Power has been your tool, to buy the time,
Of those you could not even give a second.

So all these years later, when I've mastered time.
When I've learned to control, bide and enjoy, time.
You cannot, waste time, my precious time,
Nor can you come back and expect my time.

Here we are again
You've fallen apart
Broken and in crumbles
But I am your answer

What is my name?

So long you have sat
On the sidelines, hated
For existing, when all you
Wanted was freedom

So what shall I be called?

You've cried out, screamed
Injustice! Silence and compliance
The only answer recieved
No more, for I have come

What voice shall be known as?

Retribution, vengeance or
Something inbetween?

I'm ready and willing
Give life, breathe despair
Into my flesh and I will
Liberate your suffering

But I ask again, what is my name?

Discussing selves
Seperating, the who, the me and the I's
Devin, Fiendish and Abyss
Names, giving voice to the enigma
The grandeur of my existence

Each so distinct from the other
Their echoes scream insanities
To outside observer
Unknown to them, the saviors
The martyrs, dematerializing
Preserving the vessel for new life.

As I am now, as I perceive
The life that was Devin
Is only a shade, a memory.
His ghost fades in time
Burdening wounds of flesh
Reminisce of his struggle.
Consumed by the flames of darkness

Born from the ashes Abyss.
Singing songs of the soul
Revitalize broken body.
Shattered experiences now
Sewn with vendetta.
Passion, dagger tongued monster.
The frail boy, seized by demons.
To heal mortal pains.

Enter and accept the madness
Fiendish rises, the final mantle.
Successor of consciousness
Stranger to the former, fading.
I am the survivor.

A label is the weapon of Hate
Written swiftly to defend those worthy
And quicker still to condemn the unworthy

A label is to confine within a spectrum
To be anything but it to be exceptional
To be anything but it to be forgotten

When two men of evil intent strike
But one is white, he is called by his trades
But one is black, he is called by his crime

When two men of good save the day
But one is white, he is a hero
But one is black, he is gone with the wind

This narrative of Hate's design
Sets in place a story void of fact
But a story which becomes fruition

This sinister tale becomes a holy book
For which people stake and claim lives
A fairy tale with real and cruel consequences

These labels, while beautiful in diversity
Simultaneously enforce the war of US vs. THEM
Compliance in such a story, is Ignorance's Finest Hour

The shrill cackle of dusk set herself
Upon the waning summer heat.

Low lit purple haze on the horizon
Painted wild in the cresent Moon smile.

Bear out the harvest, sacrifice all fortune,
Be full and join the evening on the morrow.

As the Sun exhanged his twilight gaze
Darkness drew itself into the shadows

Slave away for offering, the Night is near
As Day fades, the dark blue sky is empty.

Screams, despair is upon the fools
Lambs to the slaughter until she rises.

Ripples of Darkness
I tire, weary from the day
Nightmares sail forward
Through a storm of closed eyelids

Eyes flutter, dare I sleep now
Visions, lightless creatures
They call to me, more rather
I am sure it is a scream

Haunting me like absent words
The ones which I've buried
That creative self, once more
But we rise again, always

I let these spectres wail
Who am I to stop creation
Paint the horrific, vibrant dusk
And I'll admire this truth

Calls for Patriotism,
Does not equal a compromise.
Complaining about divisiveness
Requesting unity, and patience
Is the luxury of the majority.

To ask such things, emulates ignorance
Offering togetherness, as blind eyes fall
On bodies littered in streets, or behind bars
It is to insist to further a cause of opposition
Allowing complacency to enslave and oppress

My ears bleed
This ******* noise
Eardrums bursting
While I beg
For Silence

It creeps and crawls
Each wave crashing
Against my last nerve
Pushed over the edge
Diving head first
Into oblivion.

The flesh flies buzz on the old bog,
Tattered, forgotten in the forest of tainted dreams.

The foul air, in its humid fever,
Carries the stench of death, and secrets between friends.

The muck, thick and rot with fears,
And time too, seems to lose itself in the swamp's embrace.

I saw it carved in the flesh of a dream,
"You're nothing, until you do it."
And is that not the truth.
For you no much more a writer,
until you have written.
Nor are you a killer,
until you have killed.